Thankful for Fantasy

“Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” – Dr. Seuss.

“Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters, united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.” Francisco Goya.

“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it.” Lloyd Alexander

I’ve spent the more significant part of the last seven years writing a weekly blog that covers famous fantasy authors, and believe it or not, I’ve only gotten through two different authors. H.P. Lovecraft and, currently, J.R.R. Tolkien.

Meanwhile, during that time, media like Critical Role and Stranger Things have increased the popularity and accessibility of Dungeons and Dragons (and general role-playing games).

“Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” – Dr. Seuss.

“Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters, united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.” Francisco Goya.

“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it.” Lloyd Alexander

I’ve spent the more significant part of the last seven years writing a weekly blog that covers famous fantasy authors, and believe it or not, I’ve only gotten through two different authors. H.P. Lovecraft and, currently, J.R.R. Tolkien.

Meanwhile, during that time, media like Critical Role and Stranger Things have increased the popularity and accessibility of Dungeons and Dragons (and general role-playing games).

I’m happy about this resurgence. I’ve played role-playing games and read fantasy books my entire life, but it’s hard to explain what it does to someone who doesn’t appreciate it.

I will tie Horror with Fantasy here (just like Lovecraft was also part of my blog) because they are the same.

Horror, just like anything else, has levels. There is Horror that is just there for the scared or the gross-out, but excellent Horror is there to explore grief, courage, and the human condition. The use of subtext is paramount because the antagonists in good Horror are almost always the characters themselves. It is something internal they must work through, some wound that they never dealt with that manifests into some epic evil.

Likewise, in Fantasy, you might have a simple story of a group on some adventure, but excellent Fantasy incorporates themes of PTSD, hope, and friendship. In good Fantasy, characters go through outrageous ordeals and must live with their decisions. In most Fantasy, the odds are overwhelming, and the protagonists must gather their courage and face stronger foes that outnumber them.

So what does that do for the person consuming that media? Why is Fantasy an essential part of our collective consciousness, even when describing things that don’t occur in this world?

It’s because of what Fantasy does; it deals with deeper issues and it’s escapism. When you are dealing with something as serious as PTSD, facing that condition straight on with a realistic dramatic story that shows a character going through what you had gone through actually might not help that much. Sure, you can have the experience of seeing someone go through whatever you went through. Still, a dramatic, visceral take might trigger you more (I hate to use the word trigger because it’s overused in our modern parlance and diminishes people who genuinely have to deal with such things, but it’s the most appropriate word in this instance).

Art from The Stormlight Archive by Michael Whelan

Take a book like “The Stormlight Archive” by Brandon Sanderson. It’s a High Fantasy series where each character has to deal with something horrendous. Whether it’s war, abuse, or death and grief, each character must navigate and work through these problems subtly while at the same time dealing with the fantasy world they live in.

The fantasy aspect takes away some of the real-world stings of events and enables us as readers to process some of the trauma realistically, much more than being faced with Horror and made to deal with it head-on.

This idea is precisely the point of the Lloyd Alexander (novelist, most well known for his fantasy books for young readers) quote above. Fantasy allows you to have an extremely complex reality and break it down in a way conducive to healing, enabling understanding.

The Black Cauldron

Likewise, Dr. Seuss’s quote might seem a little out of place, but what he’s saying is that Fantasy allows us to take something from our lives and then take it to its extreme, which turns something potentially harmful into something absurd. It will enable you to release some of the gravity of reality because you can suddenly see that those things weighing on you may not be as bad as they seem if you have to sit in their emotion.

Nostalgia and levity, perspective, and release are what these two quotes are all about. We read these types of Fantasy when we see something like Tolkien. Lloyd Alexander (If you have not read or seen the Disney version of The Black Cauldron, stop what you’re doing and do so). But there is another type of Fantasy. A much darker aspect, and that is what Goya speaks of in his above quote.

Goya is talking about Exorsizing our Demons, and it’s why people love the darker turn of Fantasy and all of Horror. Everyone has fears and demons that they harbor inside, and everyone has to deal with them to a certain degree.

One of the steps of recovery from trauma (and of psychological trials like anxiety) is verbalizing or visualizing the actual trauma. It becomes much easier to deal with if you can manifest your fear and see it for what it is. A famous psychological test is the “Then what” test. You state your fear (I’m going to fail a test); once externalized, you ask, “Then what?” (My grade will go down). “Then what?” (I’ll have to study harder. My parents will be mad at me.) “Then what?”

Eventually, you get to a point where there is nothing in the well to worry about, and looking back, the fear is diminished because the result is very rarely the worst-case scenario in the first place.

Goya is manifesting the worst-case scenario and bringing it to the forefront, except what happens in Fantasy? Very rarely, the worst-case scenario. The giant monster emerges (the worst fear), and the protagonist prevails (even if they don’t eliminate the big bad).

Francisco Goya “Saturn Eating His Son”

Fantasy is a way to face your fears and prevail over them. Fantasy is a way to show that it’s possible.

So, on this Thanksgiving Day, I’m thankful for Fantasy. I am no longer hiding the fact that I love the genre and that it can be less than Literature because what good Fantasy does is heal our souls, and everyone needs a little healing sometimes.